BAN ON RAFFLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 142, 17 June 1926, Page 20

BAN ON RAFFLES.

SMALL ART UNIONS ONLY. NO MIKERAL SPECIMENS. THE GOVERNMENT'S DECISION. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. In future the Government will not grant any applications for licenses to conduct raffles in ivliich mineral specimens form the prizes, and it intends to introduce legislation amending *the Gaming Act in that direction. • The edict is not to apply to cases in which licenses have already been granted, provided that the conditions of the Act are complied with, while the decision of the Government will not affect small art unions in which works of nrt, paintings, drawings, and sculpture are the prizes offered. In referring to the matter, the Hon. 11. F. Bollard, Minister of Internal Affairs, said that many of the last-mentioned class of raffles were for the benefit of bodies doing charitable and philanthropic work, some also being for the benefit of returned soldiers of artistic bent who were in needy circumstances through disabilities'froin war service. In many of these raffles the prize value was as low as £20. Others came from church bodies, and generally all were for pictures or similar artistic handiwork. Mr. .Bollard, however, had something further to say about complaints he had received respecting the methods employed by the promoters of one or two of the art unions for big prizes in mineral specimens that had been held in the Dominion. The promoters, in submitting their applications, had in every way met the conditions laid down by the Gaming Act, and he had no option'under the authority given but to grant them. Methods Complained Of. It was not until after the art unions had proceeded that complaints began to reach him, mainly about the almost wholesale broadcasting of tickets. Many of the books of tickets were sent to persons totally opposed to such a form of raising money for the objects in view, and naturally these persons raised a storm of objection. Some complainants stated that they knew of instances in which unscrupulous persons receiving books had sold them, pocketed the proceeds from the sale, and destroyed the butts of the tickets. Thus persons purchasing them would not actually be in the drawing of the art union. For those reasons he stopped the broadcasting of tickets some time ago, but some of the promoters did not wholly heed the restriction. The professional promoter had also come into art unions, and the flotation expenses had reached some thousands of pounds. There was one case some time ago where an art union in New Zealand had raised £32,000, and it had cost £16,000. These were some of the reasons which actuated the Cabinet in deciding to restrict art unions to works of art.